That's definitely an eye-opening stat that people are taking to heart. The concern appears to be that while the fatality numbers have been low relative to the number of people who die from common strains of the flu, human resistance to H1N1 is almost non-existant.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The swine flu virus that has sparked fear and precautions worldwide appears to be no more dangerous than the regular flu virus that makes its rounds each year, U.S. officials said Monday.

“What the epidemiologists are seeing now with this particular strain of H1N1 is that the severity of the disease, the severity of the flu — how sick you get — is not stronger that regular seasonal flu,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday, as the worldwide number of confirmed cases of swine flu — technically known as 2009 H1N1 virus — topped 1,085.

The flu has been blamed for 26 deaths — 25 in Mexico and one in the United States, according to the World Health Organization.

Still, Napolitano noted, the seasonal flu results in “hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations” and roughly 35,000 fatalities each year in the United States. There are still concerns that the virus could return in the fall — in the typical flu season — as a stronger strain.

“We are cautiously optimistic that this particular strain will not be more severe than a normal seasonal flu outbreak,” Napolitano said. Federal officials will continue to prepare for possible futures outbreaks and look into developing and distributing an H1N1 vaccine, she said.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the WHO said they will monitor developments in the Southern Hemisphere, where flu season arrives over the next few months. Results there will help determine actions in the United States and elsewhere when flu season in the Northern Hemisphere arrives in the fall.

Awesome. We get to perpetuate the fear for several more months; how sweet is that?

Stronger strain? Uh, no, sorry. For it to change would require it to mutate or recombine further and it is therefore no longer the same strain. More hedging that I quite frankly still don't get. Scare the snot out of people and then realize oops, we ****** up on that guess, so we'll say chicken little will be back even stronger in the fall? Really, what gives because this isn't making sense. I'm not surprised Napolitano isn't getting it correct, she's just a politician, but I'm really, really curious about why the CDC and WHO are saying this sort of stuff.

The World Health Organization raised the swine flu alert Thursday to its highest level, saying H1N1 has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic.

Increasing the alert to Level 6 does not mean that the disease is deadlier or more dangerous than before, just that it has spread to more countries, the WHO said.

As of Wednesday evening, the virus had spread to 72 countries, the health agency said. There were 25,288 confirmed cases and 139 deaths. The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

Also Thursday, authorities in Hong Kong ordered the closure of all elementary schools, kindergartens and day care centers in the city after 12 students were found to be infected with the virus.

Authorities have not determined the source of the infection, said Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang. This makes it the first cluster of swine flu cases in the city without a link to someone who had traveled overseas.

The number of cases continues to grow in Britain, Japan and Australia -- all of them outside the Americas, where the virus was first detected in April.

Thursday's declaration of a pandemic by the WHO made this the first flu pandemic in 41 years.

In Hong Kong, the schools and day care centers were told to close for 14 days as investigators tried to identify the source of the infection, said Tsang, the chief executive.

The health department will decide after two weeks whether or not to continue the shutdown.

A month ago, Hong Kong quarantined about 300 hotel guests for a week after the first case of the virus was confirmed there.

Hong Kong's abundance of caution stems from the government's unwillingness to see a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2004, which killed nearly 300 people.

Also on Thursday, Israel's health ministry announced that the number of people diagnosed with swine flu there was 68.

Health officials have begun using the virus' clinical name -- H1N1 -- to reflect that it's actually a combination of several different types of flu and to reduce confusion about whether eating pork can spread the virus. It cannot.

Every year in the United States, on average 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and; about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

The World Health Organization raised the swine flu alert Thursday to its highest level, saying H1N1 has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic.

Increasing the alert to Level 6 does not mean that the disease is deadlier or more dangerous than before, just that it has spread to more countries, the WHO said.

As of Wednesday evening, the virus had spread to 72 countries, the health agency said. There were 25,288 confirmed cases and 139 deaths. The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

I think the real concern is this fall... the swine flu could combine with regular seasonal flu to produce a very virulent strain which nobody has antibodies to fight. That's what happened in 1918, leading to 60+ million deaths, most of them healthy adults (the 36,000 are mostly old, very young or sick). We have much better means to control an outbreak these days, but it's certainly dangerous.

Anyone have the flu yet? I think I have it right now. About halftime of the game today I started coming down with a fever...I'm at 100 right now and feel like crap. Not sure if it H1N1 of course but its been going around town like crazy since school started. Thanks to the guy at work that came back after only being out for a day

I know I and 99.99% of people will be fine, what scares me is if the avian/swine/human death strain ever happens...I think the failures of getting out vaccine and people not getting sick is pretty damn scary...no?

I'm in the same boat as you Scott. I got slammed with a fever and body aches and am pretty much living on the couch for the next few days (which really sucks because I was supposed to have a job interview on Monday). I started my Tamiflu because I have a heart condition and so I'm in the "high risk" group. I know that seasonal flu affects people every year, but it's kinda scary that the H1N1 version hits younger people and kids.

Well, being ever the radical, I remain wholly unconcerned about the H1N1 variant.

The Southern Hemisphere has gone through their flu season already but the Northern Hemisphere, where we are located, is just entering it. Ok, fair enough. Currently the H1N1 mortality sits in the ballpark of 5000 cases worldwide. I won't bother linking the CDC website again, but the annual mortality from regular, garden variety flu and related complications (I assume those 5000 deaths attributed to H1N1 can be described as "flu and related complications" as well) in the US alone is 36000. I'm too lazy to look for worldwide figures on "flu" that isn't H1N1 but I'd guess if the rate is that high in the US, a first world country, it will be higher in poorer countries.

Yes, there are individuals at risk who should be concerned. Yes, it is concerning that H1N1 seems to have some greater impacts on younger folks rather than just knocking off geezers. At the same time, and realizing this is wholly relevant to many here, younger kids means under 5 for high risk. Otherwise they aren't in the high risk category (6-18 y.o.). I also suspect that much of the "unusual" mortality cases will tend to have complications, as the young hockey player in Canada (10 y.o.) did - asthma.

Old flu is boring, common and lethal. H1N1 is a "new" variety of the flu and thankfully from the media's perspective, it kills some people outside the norm of what is expected, ergo it becomes big news. Couple that with a shortage of vaccine, panic in the clinics handing it out and the media are rubbing their hands together with glee.

I don't have the flu yet but won't be surprised if I get it. Knock on wood I hope it doesn't do anything serious but I'm not about to start worrying about what ifs at this point.

I know I and 99.99% of people will be fine, what scares me is if the avian/swine/human death strain ever happens...I think the failures of getting out vaccine and people not getting sick is pretty damn scary...no?

At the risk of pushing this south, you can't trust the pharmaceutical companies anyway, right? The true complication is you can't pump out that much stuff (vaccine) that fast anyway. You still need to go through the testing and all the regulatory procedures. This is a recombinant variety of the regular flu, so you can't just easily dump some identical vaccine out there. It won't work and if you modify it haphazardly without the testing it could be worse than the disease. Manufacturing processes coupled with regulatory processes = slow.

If that evil death strain ever comes out, we're all screwed anyway, much as if Iran fires off a bunch of nukes. I grew up living under that spectre with the cold war through the 70s. I'm not suggesting we can ignore it but practically speaking there really isn't anything we can do about it either.

Do what you can to keep your family safe, but be realistic is my viewpoint. I'd never suggest folks not wash their hands, cough into their sleeves or not use hand sanitizer. But has the rate of infection fallen by a measurable percentage? I seriously doubt it but someone's making a boatload off the high profile nature of this flu relative to its mortality rate. More than one someone. And knocking on wood doesn't hurt either